国家地理

photo by @randyolson | words by @neilshea13 — Listen to locals on Easter Island and they’ll tell you the big statues once walked—loped out of the quarry and over the treeless hills to set themselves up on dark stone pedestals near the shore or plant themselves, backs to the sea, farther inland. It’s a good story and true, but if it does not answer your questions then archaeologists will offer another, one of earthly forces, friction and gravity, ropes and logs. Teams of men and maybe women who tipped, wobbled and pulled nearly 900 moai across the landscape to anchor the sky to earth and the ancestors to their children. This also is a good, true story. So, which will it be? Magic or data, faith or muscle? Both have their attractions. Both deliver you into a world that Europeans glimpsed only for a moment before it vanished. You could choose the middle ground, somewhere between a stroll and a drag, but these days almost nobody lasts very long in there. Take your time deciding, then. There’s really no wrong answer. In the meantime, I feel compelled to mention that this moai—sunken, surrounded by divers—is fake. Yeah. It’s concrete. Cast onshore and then dumped, not so long ago, into the sea. I’m sorry. I wanted it to be real, too—this figure, alone, walking out beyond the others. It would have been the best story of all. —@thephotosociety @natgeocreative #easterisland #rapanui #polynesian #moai #captaincook #oceans #science #myth #archaeology #carving #engineering #wildcountry #explorer #scuba #natgeo #photographers #writers #adryseason #watershedstories —Part of a series exploring the small stories that surround and connect us, and how we stumble through them—capturing, missing, and making meaning.